5 Tips for Expanding Your Business Globally

Dan Radak, WED | Once you’ve conquered the domestic market, it’s time to start thinking about expanding your business globally. However, penetrating the foreign market is never going to be easy. You can’t just go and copy your domestic business formula and apply it in other countries. Do this and you may end up being a laughing stock just like it happened to some unlucky brands out there. So, if you want to give your business a chance to succeed on a global level, you’ll have to make sure you get everything right from the day one. And to help you do this, we’ve come up with 5 tips for taking your business globally.

Start with similar markets

As we’ve already said, conquering foreign markets isn’t going to be easy. That’s why you’ll probably want to start by tackling markets similar to the market you’ve already conquered. Usually, this will be countries nearby and countries that use the same language you do. However, it’s always a good idea to take a trip to the country you want to expand to and see for yourself whether your product could make in that particular market. If you decide to do this, make sure you pay extra attention to the social norms and business customs that could affect your operations.

Hire people who speak foreign languages

Another important thing you’ll need to do if you want your business to succeed in foreign markets is hire people who speak more than one language. This is the case because when tackling foreign markets, you’ll find yourself working with many local companies and individuals and being able to communicate with them is extremely important. And when you have a bilingual employee working for your company, you won’t have to worry about not being able to understand people you work with. The bilingual employee you hire can either hold the meetings for you or just translate.

Figure out how well your product can do

When expanding globally, it’s very important that you take some extra time to think about how well your product can do abroad. This means you’ll need to take into consideration how does your product fit in the local culture and what whether you’ll have enough money to compete in the market. Therefore, you’ll need to predict your sales and ensure that penetrating a foreign market makes financial sense. Forecasting your sales should also help you identify challenges you’ll face once you actually start expanding.

Turn to right service providers

As mentioned above, expanding globally means you’ll have to work with a lot of foreign companies. The way you choose those companies is something that can make or break your company’s global efforts. Luckily, there are platforms you can use to make sure you find the right service providers for your company. For example, when expanding to Hong Kong, using a platform such as 2Easy is something you simply can’t go wrong with. Once you manage to connect with quality service providers, penetrating a new market will be a lot easier.

Take a closer look at your competition

You might be making a lot of sales in your country but this doesn’t mean this is going to be the same abroad. This is mostly due to the fact that there are local companies that offer the same products you do. If they offer more quality or lower prices, chances are you won’t be able to make it. Therefore, before you start expanding, you’ll need to take a closer look at who you’ll be up against. Sometimes, you’ll need to adjust your product or offer lower prices in order to be able to succeed in a foreign market.

With these 5 tips in mind, penetrating foreign markets shouldn’t be too difficult. Just make sure that you’re 100% positive tackling a foreign market makes sense before you start doing so.

Dan Radak is a marketing professional with eleven years of experience. He is a coauthor on several websites and regular contributor to BizzMark Blog. Currently, he is working with a number of companies in the field of digital marketing, closely collaborating with a couple of e-commerce companies.

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World Executives Digest is a blog-style collection of bite-sized content for business executives constantly on-the-go. It is published by serial entrepreneur Homer Nievera to bridge the learning gap for upwardly mobile mavericks and bigshots.